General Election 2010: Poverty is all around us, killing childhoods

A significant proportion of families in work are in poverty, struggling to
afford basic essentials. Politicans must take action, says Fergus Drake.

Rebecca Abingdon, 8, lives with her dad David, a multimillionaire tycoon, mum Angie and brother George in a 30-room mansion in the heart of the Cotswold countryside. Eight-year-old Iris and mum Cal live just 11 miles away. Both Cal and David believe in hard work and education. The difference is, Cal spent 18 years living as a New Age traveller before making the life-changing decision to study law at 18 when she was pregnant with Iris.

She achieved a first-class degree, a Masters with distinction and completed her bar exams while living in a trailer and bringing up Iris on her own. Yet she can’t find chambers willing to take her on for her pupilage. So now the only thing Cal has to show for eight years of study is £20,000 of debt and a part-time job in Ladbrokes paying £400 a month.

Channel 4’s programme ‘How the Other Half Live’ – which Save the Children has been supporting - brings the two families together to see if the Abingdons can help Cal and Iris out of a life in which they run out of fuel in the harshest winter for 20 years, and in which the debt collectors call regularly. Perhaps the most telling comment comes from eight-year-old Rebecca, who goes to an exclusive private school. "Poverty happens in London and big cities. I don't think there is much poverty around here though,” she tells the programme.

Rebecca is totally wrong, as she soon discovers. Here in the 21st century in one of the richest countries in the world, poverty is all around us, killing childhoods. In this country there are an estimated four million children living in poverty – 1.7 million of them living in severe poverty.

Living in severe poverty means living on less than £12,220 a year (for a couple with one child). This amount leaves families around £113 a week short of what they need to cover food, electricity and gas, phones, other bills, clothes, washing, transport and healthcare, not to mention furnishings, activities for children and other essential items. Children like Iris are missing out on everyday essentials such as food and clothing. They cannot afford things that most families take for granted, such as celebrating a birthday or having a short family holiday.

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Poverty does not just affect families who don’t work. Like Cal, a significant proportion of families in work are in poverty. Many people are trapped in low paid and insecure jobs.

As the Prime Minister calls the general election, as all parties talk about a fair society, it is time to see action from all our politicians. It is shameful that we live in a country where three quarters of the families we speak to in severe poverty can’t replace worn-out furniture; nearly all can’t afford a holiday away from home once a year even in the UK and a quarter can’t even afford to send their children to a toddler group, nursery group or playgroup at least once a week.

David does his best to sort out Cal’s problems in the first programme of the series. But there are thousands more Cals out there – families that Save the Children is trying to help and that we want to see action on now.